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Two-Face Tuesday! A DCAU father-son(s) reunion in "Lucky Day"

The Two-Face of B:TAS is easily one of the finest depictions of the character. It stayed true to his spirit even while the origin was notably altered* in both the physical and psychological causes for Harvey's transformation.

The psychological explanation for Harvey's dark side--dubbed "Big Bad Harv," and after all these years, I still don't know if I find that silly or not--is it's the result from years of Harvey's suppressed rage, stemming from his guilt at attacking a bully.

As far as psychological motivations go, it's rather specious. I mean, really, one moment like that doesn't create Two-Face. But it was written for kids who were likely familiar with the pain of bullies, and hey, ongoing child abuse isn't exactly the stuff of afternoon cartoons.

But then we have the comics based on B:TAS, which weren't afraid to introduce darker themes. As such, leave it to the great Ty Templeton (an underrated master; dig this awesome interview with Ty conducted by our own zegas) to delve past the "bully" theory, and introduce a twist on the regular DCU origin:

Really, what the hell were the game show's producers thinking? Everything about this show practically begged Two-Face to rob them, even under more normal circumstances than this. It's like how Gotham museums should know never to house any jewels or artifacts that are in any way cat-related. You'd really think they'd figure this out by now.

Two-Face sits in the audience, disguised. His henchman, disguised as an usher, asks if he's sure he wants to flip the coin to make sure he wants to go through with this heist.

Two-Face replies, "No. Every part of me wants to do this."

I don't suppose I have to stress how rare it is that both sides of Harvey agree on something and don't bother tossing the coin.

So Two-Face makes his move, seeing his father for the first time in twenty years. Also, they reveal that Lester Dent was a used car salesman, which appeals to me. Like lawyers, used car salesman know how to manipulate the truth and sell it back to somebody.

And really, if Two-Face really is the manifestation of the sins of the father, then suddenly Harvey's fashion sense in the comics makes so much more sense.

Lester is furious, demanding why Harvey had to come and ruin his "lucky day."

A fascinating twist on the "abusive father" origin, as introduced by Andrew Helfer in BATMAN ANNUAL #14, "Eye of the Beholder." There, the game was always rigged. The father would force Harvey to be tails, convince him that he had a fair shot the whole time, and then beat him senseless.

And Harvey loved his father so much that he was in total denial that his father could ever possibly be so cruel, so unfair, while at the same time, his brewing darker self knew the game was rigged all along, and burned with fury and resentment as the years went on. Thus we have a complex and powerful cause for the schism in poor Harvey's head long before the acid hit.

And it makes Harvey's own use of the coin more meaningful, because unlike his father, he actually is playing fair.

But here, the game actually was fair, even though losing meant a horrible beating. And this twisted fairness with horrible consequences has more clearly direct influence on what Harvey becomes. I prefer the comics' version, complex as it is, but there's something very compelling about this take, and Lester's meek confession, "I had to teach you something..."

I dunno, which take do you guys prefer? Do you prefer the bully origin from the show? Or do you just prefer it being that Harvey simply went crazy when he had acid thrown in his face?

So Harvey tosses the coin on his father, and it comes up scarred, but Batman and Batgirl show up to save Lester's pathetic little life.

Huh! So if comics!Harvey acts against his unfair father by being "fair," DCAU!Harvey turns his father's twisted fairness against him with a no-win situation.

In comics, I really dislike it when writers have Two-Face do this, which is one reason I hate the Two-Face of PRODIGAL and ROBIN: YEAR ONE (subjects I'll tackle in a future post), but in this case, where both sides of Harvey are in rare agreement, it actually works perfectly.

Harvey and Big Bad Harv both want to get back at Lester. The bad side wants to kill him, while the good side is content with just taking away Lester's money, which was always more important to the man than his own son. It's decisions like this which make for the best Two-Face stories, where there's a lot more going on in that coin flip than simply deciding between "good" and "evil" choices.

After the cops have rounded everyone up:

How about that? Every now and again, it doesn't entirely suck to be Harvey Dent.

Finally, a request: does anybody have scans of the BATMAN newspaper comic strips that ran from 1989-1991? I'm very interested to read the Two-Face story, naturally, but also the Mad Hatter one. They're damn hard to find! Apparently, they ran in COMICS REVUE, but I can't find what issues.

I love the BATMAN ANIMATED book. It's chock-full of awesome stuff, including those. My favorite is the hyenas one, but I'm also fond of, "Page 26: We have to make it clear in the board that Batman's kneeing the Walrus in the stomach."

Sweet! Whatever you can find. Meantime, I need to track down a copy of ROBIN #11 so I can finally do a post on PRODIGAL.

Are you getting the host and the usher/henchman confused? Because I can easily see how that could happen. It doesn't help that I didn't include the page of the usher/henchman talking to Two-Face while the host and Lester talked on stage.

I don't suppose I have to stress how rare it is that both sides of Harvey agree on something and don't bother tossing the coin.

I actually don't like this part of the otherwise very good story. I think it's absolutely vital that Harvey should be a conflicted dual persona, and that he can't get out of bed without the coin. For whatever reasons, it's tied to his face -- if you fix his face, the issues he has get revert back down into his subconscious... Your mileage, it may vary.

I dunno, which take do you guys prefer? Do you prefer the bully origin from the show? Or do you just prefer it being that Harvey simply went crazy when he had acid thrown in his face?

As with all things, I like to pick and choose what gets admitted into retro fanon, and when I like two things, I try to make them both fit (heh). If he was abused for most of his childhood, it could set him up for only one event with a bully to make him snap, and out comes Big Bad Harv. I love the DCAU aspect where it's not just his face, but the catwalk blocked half of the explosion across his entire body.

For the acid in half of the face, it has to be linked with the long-term vanity aspect for me. Very attractive, hot shot legal mind, who can wrap a jury around his finger with his charm and presence, heads (on both sides) I win, tails you lose -- splash, it's all over, everything is gone. What to do now...?

In one panel where they're watching Harvey on the monitors outside, Jim's just drinking coffee and taking a wait-and-see approach, but Renee's thinking really, really hard about something... Save yourself some trouble, Renee, neither of you will ever change. :)

Oh, I'd argue that there still is conflict between the two sides. Even though they both agree to get back at Dad, I think it's clear that they conflict as to how to do that. When the coin comes up scarred, Two-Face is very much about to kill Lester before Batman stops him. Thus, the conflict is the bad side wanting to kill him, and the good side wanting to keep him alive to punish him that way. Even when Harvey's sides agree, there's still always going to be disagreement underneath.

I'm curious, why do you prefer the whole scarred body thing? Personally, I think it's way overkill and verging on camp. And really, to nitpick, he's Two-Face, not Two-Body.

I don't think the face-scarring-by-acid necessarily has to be linked with vanity. I personally easily see it lending itself to themes of personas and masks that people wear in their lives, stressing a "Devil Inside" motif, as Matt Wagner put it. The whole rest of his body looks complete, like any average man... but from the neck up, you see the schism. It's a representation of the monster inside his mind, just underneath the surface. When the focus is just on the face, I find that more compelling, y'know?

While I agree, I do kinda like the versions where his left hand is burned, too. That makes for an interesting visual, and makes sense, too, since it would be quite likely that he would bring his hand up to shield/clutch at his face when the acid was tossed at it.

I wish the hand could just be selectively burned, in the way that one might expect from a hand that reached up to grab at a face burning with acid. Beyond the hand and the face, though, nothing else being scarred is the way I personally prefer it.

What would be interesting would be if one hand was scarred and the other one was gloved. It's fairly common for Harvey to have a glove on his left hand, but personally, I think it'd fit just as well on his right - I mean, if it was a kid glove or something, it could be seen as part of the good side's refined sensibility. Or, for that matter, it could be a tantalizing mystery - we're used to seeing the left hand gloved and the right hand bare, but here the left hand is scarred, therefore definitely part of the evil side, and the right is gloved, which is ALSO traditionally part of the evil side! It would be choose-your-own-interpretation time - either it would show the evil/good split in the normal way, with the glove equalling 'refined gentleman', and the bare hand like the naked claw of some hideous monster, or a sinister indication that the bad side was slowly but surely reaching out, and had now claimed part of the good side as well. It would be pretty subtle, but interesting.

That Harvey would agree on what but not on how makes a lot of sense, but "Every part of me wants to do this" just doesn't sound right. It would have worked better for me if he'd said something like "That's not the dilemma, and it's not the time yet for the decision I need to make. Go warm up the Duesenberg, we're leaving in two minutes".

The entire-body vs. just-the-face dichotomy works better for me because he wears the nice Italian suit on one side, and the ugly plaid suit on the other, but there are two nicely manicured hands coming out of the sleeves. I would not have thought about it before the DCAU introduced the idea. I took to it immediately, and it also neatly explains the rather straight dividing line on his face, unlikely for a splash of liquid. I think his catastrophic obsession with the number two fits better when he's evenly divided. It's not indispensable, but it's grown on me.

I like an unusually strong vanity in Harvey before the acid for more direct causality. If he's normal until hit with the acid, why wouldn't he just take a few weeks off from work, go to the plastic surgeon, and go along business as usual? I guess the trope of snapping during a single event of intense pressure gets rolled out pretty often (starting with Bruce, and the line goes around the block), but I think it's appropriate in Harvey's case. I also like when Harvey's good side is as gorgeous as his bad side is hideous (and I'm of the opinion that the beautiful people tend to be at least a little vain). I might have been influenced by Jack Nicholson's Joker, who was shown to be dapper and more than a little full of himself before the Axis Chemicals mishap. Again, just my two cents.

I really love this story. It also reminds me of the conversation we once had about Two Face being the 'shooting mobsters one day and helping old lady's across the street the other day'. I think the Harvey Dent side was responsible for rigging the money with explosives whereas the Big Bad Harv side went for a lot more straight up approach by humiliating him on live television.

By the way, I was wondering what did you think of the Batman: Gotham Knight anime shorts they released a few years back?

Ooh, I like that idea! I wish we could have more stories that leave the reader guessing as to what actions were done by which side. It would add a wonderful level of ambiguity to a character who lives in black and white.

Eh, I was rather underwhelmed. I barely remember it, honestly. Only thing that comes to mind was Brian Azzarello's bit, which had that typical Azzarello trait of it being a really ambitious idea that wins points for effort but just kinda fails into pretension (he can't reach up to Alfred because he's holding all those guns! IT'S SYMBOLIC, MOLTAR).

Ooh, I like that idea! I wish we could have more stories that leave the reader guessing as to what actions were done by which side. It would add a wonderful level of ambiguity to a character who lives in black and white.

Plus once you build stories around the writer himself flipping a coin to decide the outcome, which aaron_bourque came up with, it adds a lot more ambiguity in Two Face.

Eh, I was rather underwhelmed. I barely remember it, honestly. Only thing that comes to mind was Brian Azzarello's bit, which had that typical Azzarello trait of it being a really ambitious idea that wins points for effort but just kinda fails into pretension (he can't reach up to Alfred because he's holding all those guns! IT'S SYMBOLIC, MOLTAR).

Frankly, I liked it compared to most people. I still watch Rucka's (Cross Fire), Azzarello's and Alan Burnett's (Deadshot) ones from time to time. The animation was nice but to be honest I wish someone other than Kevin Conroy would get a chance to voice Batman. I know Conroy is pretty much Batman's defining voice but there are other voice actors out there who could do a good job voicing Batman.

Did aaron_bourque come up with that idea? I recall it was alias_grace who specifically came up with the idea to do a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE Two-Face story, which is something I'm seriously gonna try to write once I have less important actual work to do.

Agreed. I love Conroy too, but I'm starting to realize there are times when his Batman doesn't work as effectively. He will still be THE Batman voice in my head, but different styles should go for a different voice.

Looking back on it, aaron mentions that he would like to see a Two Face story where the story is determined by the writer's coin flip and alias_grace mentions she wants to see a 'choose your own adventure' style Two Face story.

Jeremy Sisto? Yeah he works as a Batman voice but I think Diedrich Bader would have been a better choice considering the story was very evocative of the Golden/Silver Age. Jeremy Sisto would be my choice if they ever do a darker Batman movie, I like the low, silent and somewhat whispery voice he does.

I guess it wasn't until the CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE idea that it really clicked for me as something that could work beyond its gimmick to actually being something potentially brilliant.

Yeah, Bader really is growing on me for that Silver Age style Batman. I have yet to catch up with recent episodes of B:TB&TB. I understand there was or will be an Emperor Joker episode. I must see that one.

To my knowledge, they haven't aired that episode yet. I hear Conroy and Mark Hamill will be voicing the Phantom Stranger and the Spector in an episode and I can't help but glee over how much roles fit for the actors.

Yeah, Bader really is growing on me for that Silver Age style Batman. I have yet to catch up with recent episodes of B:TB&TB

Andrea Romano has an incomparable ear when it comes to Voice/Casting Directing.

I always liked how the BTAS and TNBA comic books always add to the characters in the show, and not just be action-filled extensions. And this issue was no exception. You get a very logical Two-Face backstory, a nicely done revenge, and just a few pages of action to satisfy your testosterone needs.

Exactly! Which is why I maintain that these BTAS comics are seriously the best BATMAN comics of the past twenty years, at least.

The stories were rarely world-shaking "events," but who cares? At their best, they captures everything that is wonderful and enduring about these characters, and they did it with perfect balance of all aspects, as you note with this one.

Ultimately I think the comics version is still Two-Face for me, but this is a great variation on the character that sort of illuminates even the original version if you think about it. Especially since the unfair coin toss is something I could someone cruel doing to a kid.

Also I agree that it's cheating and so undermines the character when Two-Face is cheating. It's like the Joker in a way, in a convo that was here recently. If he's always a psycho murderer it's not chaotic. If Two-Face's coin is just a gimick for drama, it's not Two-Face.

The only excuse I can come up with for Two-Face cheating is that his bad side has, in those moments, taken over completely and he's essentially become his father. It's the only way I can at least halfway enjoy stories like ROBIN YEAR ONE and PRODIGAL.

In regards to the strips, if it's the 'Harvey Apollo' version of Two-Face you're looking for, those can be found in the 'Batman in the Forties' TPB. I don't have scans of them, I'm afraid, but the TPB is easy enough to find - I'm sure Amazon has it.

I can see why, yeah. For all the problems I have with how Grant Morrison handles the Batman characters, that was actually an inspired idea (at least, within the context and confines of the graphic novel).

I'd like to actually do a whole post about it, including some of Morrison's own annotated script pages, as they reveal a lot of interesting stuff (not to mention moment of Morrison own pretension, but that's fun too). But my dang scanner just can't handle the book's binding enough to make flat images.

But yeah, the most effective way to stop Two-Face is to break him down like that. My favorite take is how they did it in BTAS. He managed to be pitiful and sympathetic and tragic and unnervingly batshit crazy all at the same time.

Latest reply ever (I was just going through old Gotham Adventures posts), but I find it interesting how Templeton chose to have Harv call himself a lawyer in the present tense. Just gave me a bit of an "Oh, Harvey..." moment.

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